Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Ukrainian librarian under Russian house arrest takes case to court of human rights

Ukrainian librarian under Russian house arrest takes case to court of human rights....
Natalya Sharina, a Ukrainian librarian held under house arrest in Russia since October 2015, has taken her case to the European court of human rights in Strasbourg. Since her arrest in 2015, the Russian authorities have extended the order for Sharina, director of the Ukrainian Literature Library in Moscow, to be detained at home repeatedly, despite calls for her release.

In a move roundly condemned by human rights groups, Sharina went on trial in November 2016 for incitement by stocking books banned in Russia and labelled extremist and “anti-Russian propaganda”. Three weeks after the trial began, embezzlement was added to the list of charges. If found guilty, she faces up to 10 years in prison. Speaking to the Russian website Interfax, her lawyer Ivan Pavlov said the appeal to the ECHR had been launched because of her continued incarceration, which he described as absurd.